Antitank Weapons

Current and Future Capabilities Gao ID: PEMD-87-22 September 17, 1987

In response to a congressional request, GAO assessed the Department of Defense's (DOD) infantry antitank weapons' capabilities to determine the: (1) probability of hitting targets; (2) probability of a target kill; (3) rate of fire; (4) fire sustainability; and (5) infantry and weapons survivability.

GAO found that there was no information available: (1) on many of the elements that could degrade hit probability, since DOD did not routinely cover them in its performance estimates; (2) on the degrading effect of reactive armor on the performance of light weapons; (3) on how combat stress could degrade rates of fire; and (4) to compare attrition rates for each weapon under the same test conditions. GAO believes that its analytical framework could help organize weapon performance data in the acquisition of antitank weapons.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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